Beltway Blog — Lamborn to Obama: Release bin Laden photos

WASHINGTON — Fresh from viewing a half dozen photos of a battered and dead Osama bin Laden[1] at the Central Intelligence Agency[2], Rep. Doug Lamborn[3] said he will push the Obama administration to release them to the public as a lesson to the “bad people who want to kill Americans.”

The Colorado Springs[4] Republican said seeing the photos gave him as sense of “finality and closure” to the ordeal.

“Every reasonable person accepts that he’s been killed,” said Lamborn, a member of the House Armed Services Committee[5]. “But when you see it for yourself, it makes it even more final. I think it shows once and for all how wrong it was in his narrative that he’s a strong horse … It shows how wrong he was.”

The CIA on Tuesday agreed to Udall’s request and said members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees — some 100 people — could come to its headquarters and view the photos, if they wished.

Lamborn said there were “six to eight” photos, some showing bin Laden shot in the head and others showing him prepared for his burial at sea. Lamborn said they provided living pictures of bin Laden, taken at similar angles, to compare.

In releasing the photos to the public, Lamborn said, “the good outweighs the bad.”

“This shows America winning the struggle to bring Osama bin Laden to justice,” he said. “It took longer than we wanted, but the outcome was good.”